Bodog Beat

Erick Lindgren was one of the poker pros who managed to escape Day 1A of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star with bounty intact. (Bodog Beat Image)

One of the more interesting events on the World Poker Tour got underway yesterday in San Jose, CA. The WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star adds another level to the regular poker tournament structure by putting $5,000 bounties on the heads of popular poker pros – "Shooting Stars" – as well as bonuses for each day's chip leader.

Out of the 136 players who took to the tables yesterday for Day 1a of the event, 23 of them were "Shooting Stars" and only 10 survived. Knocking out three of them was Shawn Buchanan, earning $15,000 for his bounty hunting prowess. However, he would go down on the final hand of the day trying to capture another in the form of Chad Brown.

Capturing the Day 1a chip leader bonus was Hoang "Michael" Nguyen (198,300 in chips), who also earned $5,000 for knocking out John Juanda at the beginning of the day. Other "Shooting Stars" who had their bounties collected included Andy Bloch, Todd Brunson, Layne Flack, Jamie Gold, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Erik Seidel, David Singer, Marco Traniello, Lee Watkinson, Robert Williamson III and Jerry Yang.

Here are the ones that remain, along with chip counts:

Hoyt Corkins – 57,200
Freddy Deeb – 68,300
Annie Duke – 73,800
Erick Lindgren – 27,400
Jonathan Little – 121,300
David Pham – 160,600
Joe Sebok – 65,200
Gavin Smith – 7,100
Kenny Tran – 63,700
Paul Wasicka – 27,300

Day 1b gets underway in just a couple of hours and will feature another 27 "Shooting Stars" and what is expected to be a total field of over 200. If you want a chance at playing in a unique event like this as part of the World Poker Tour, then head over to Bodog Poker and qualify online for the WPT through the Bodog Flight Club promotion.